Day 1 of justice?

Dormant for years, the digital “truth” ticker has been reactivated on the upper right of the Rafik Hariri billboard above. It has been marked as day 1 in line with the start of the long-awaited trial in the Hague today, investigating his assassination.

The billboard had originally gone up shortly after the former prime minister’s murder in February 2005 and had read “The Truth.” The digital clock was soon added, with the aim of counting the days until Hariri’s killers were brought to justice. Years went by and the counting went into the thousands, prompting the somewhat embarrassing addition of a different size screen to compensate for additional zeros. A few years ago, the digital clock was removed altogether.

Now the text on the billboard has been changed from “The Truth” to “Era of Justice.” It also appears that the original 3-digit screen has been replaced with a 4 digit one. Will it lead to anything this time? And can justice really be served in a state where most of the incumbent politicians are pardoned war criminals?